Grundtvigian Folk High Schools and Their “grassroots work” of Civil Society Participation

We will discuss about the role of Grundtvigian folk high schools and their contemporary meanings in two contexts. The first one will be the revision of its sources in the Scandinavian countries (especially in Denmark) and in Poland. The second one will be an attempt to find a connection between building a civil society based on the strong foundation of Grundtvigian schools in the Scandinavian countries and its constant “corruption” is Poland. We would like to get that institution (undervalued in Poland though still functioning in Scandinavia and in many other countries) out of the past and to show its timeless “grassroots work” role in building civic attitudes.

Why Informal Workers Organize

Informal workers make up over two billion workers or about 50 percent of the global workforce. Surprisingly, scholars know little about informal workers’ political or civil society participation. An informal worker is anyone who holds a job and who does not pay taxes on taxable earnings, does not hold a license for their work when one is required, or is not part of a mandatory social security system. For decades, researchers argued that informal workers rarely organized or participated in civil society and politics. However, millions of informal workers around the world start and join unions. Why do informal workers organize? In countries like Bolivia, informal workers such as street vendors, fortune-tellers, witches, clowns, gravestone cleaners, sex workers, domestic workers, and shoe shiners come together in powerful unions. In South Africa, South Korea, and India, national informal worker organizations represent millions of citizens. The data in this book find that informal workers organize in nearly every country for which data exists, but to varying degrees. This raises a related question: Why do informal workers organize in some places more than others? The reality of informal work described in this book and supported by surveys in 60 countries, over 150 interviews with informal workers in Bolivia and Brazil, ethnographic data from multiple cities, and administrative data upends the conventional wisdom on the informal sector. The contrast between scholarly expectations and emerging data underpin the central argument of the book: Informal workers organize where state officials encourage them to.

Civil Society, Networks, and Contention Around Environmental Issues

This chapter explores key issues and questions related to civil society participation in comparative environmental politics. In doing so, it considers what the increased size, diversity, and complexity of civil society networks means for future scholarship. In particular, the authors reflect on the importance of focusing on events and institutions, the role for social network analysis, and the challenge posed by outcome complexity. They also suggest areas where the field can progress and what they consider to be important research frontiers in comparative environmental politics. These frontiers include cross-national comparative work, particularly in the developing world, as well as work on legitimacy and private authority.

Exploring Administrative Capacity and Local Governance in the Peruvian Waste Sector: Implications for Complex Service Delivery in the Global South

Municipalities in the Global South confront significant implementation challenges for the delivery of services, especially as service complexity increases. Waste management, which includes services of different complexity such as simple waste collection and complex waste disposal, is a useful sector to study. This article conducts an exploratory case study in four Peruvian municipalities to learn about the relationship between administrative capacity, political influence, and civil society participation and the performance of two waste services. The findings highlight the need to more closely consider service-specific administrative capacity in future research on performance, particularly when analyzing more complex services. Accounting for service complexity may also be important for practitioners when planning measures to strengthen administrative capacity.

From Black to Blue Skies: Civil Society Perceptions of Air Pollution in Shanghai

This paper explores the perception and politics of air pollution in Shanghai. We present a qualitative case study based on a literature review of relevant policies and research on civil society and air pollution, in dialogue with air quality indexes and field research data. We engage with the concept of China's authoritarian environmentalism and the political context of ecological civilization. We find that discussions about air pollution are often placed in a frame that is both locally temporal (environment) and internationally developmentalist (economy). We raise questions from an example of three applications with different presentations of air quality index measures for the same time and place. This example and frame highlight the central role and connection between technology, data and evidence, and pollution visibility in the case of the perception of air pollution. Our findings then point to two gaps in authoritarian environmentalism research, revealing a need to better understand (1) the role of technology within this governance context, and (2) the tensions created from this non-participatory approach with ecological civilization, which calls for civil society participation.

Civil Society Participation in Efforts to Prevent the Spread COVID-19

This study aims to describe civil society participation in efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Sidoklumpang Village, Sidoarjo District, Sidoarjo Regency and the obstacles faced. The method used was descriptive qualitative with data collection techniques through interviews, observation, documentation, and literature review. The results of this study indicate that civil society participation was carried out in mutual cooperation which was divided into four task forces including Wani Ngandani Task Force which tried to educate residents to implement health protocols, while Wani Jogo Task Force was tasked with limiting the mobility of residents with a one gate system. There was also Wani Sehat Task Force which functions to ensure the availability of a place to wash hands in front of the house and a Wani Sejahtera Task Force which identified the food needs of Probable (ODP), Confirmation (PDP), Suspect (OTG) patients, and confirms out patient care with predetermined criteria . Several obstacles were encountered such as lack of funds and low public awareness. The formation of Kampung Tangguh Semeru through the COVID-19 Prevention Task Force in Sidoklumpang Village was a concrete form of civil society participation at the grass roots level with a partnership model.

Implementation of Pancasila Values in Civil Society Participation Against Covid-19

Covid-19 pandemic significantly affects the community’s social life. It does not only result in a health crisis but also an economic crisis. This condition requires a collaboration between the governments and the community as national integration. Recent political situation exhibits a decrease in the tense relationship between the state and the civil society. A transformation is necessary to compromise. Accordingly, the state and civil society should cooperate, help each other, and control each other. Pancasila, as an open ideology, should be implemented as a national life guideline to obtain the state goals amid this pandemic.

PENGEMBANGAN KONSEP OPEN GOVERMENT UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KUALITAS LAYANAN KOTA PALEMBANG (STUDI KASUS : KOTA PALEMBANG)

Open Government is committed to improving the quality of information availability on government activities, supporting civil society participation in government, upholding professional standards in public administration to prevent corruption, abuse of power and increasing access to the use of new technologies to support accountability and openness. Currently, many governments have implemented e-government which supports the government's goals in open government. Where, e-government is used to describe the use of technology in carrying out several government tasks. The city government of Palembang has several applications or e-government systems that are open government. The city government of Palembang has not made a quality measurement of the e-government that has been implemented, so it is not known the level of quality in each application or system implemented. Based on this explanation, it is necessary to analyze the level of service quality in the system that has been implemented by the Palembang City Government.

New Responses to the Legitimacy Crisis of International Institutions: The Role of ‘Civil Society’ and the Rise of the Principle of Participation of ‘The Most Affected’ in International Institutional Law

The article offers a description and assessment of the most important discursive strategies used to enhance and justify various models of ‘civil-society participation’ in international institutions since the late 19th century. It starts from the assumption that the two main rationales for, or concepts of, ‘civil-society’ participation are functionalism and democratization. The article also notes that, as an offshoot of the democratization rationale, a new empirical and discursive 21st-century trend has partially replaced classic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with so-called ‘affected person’s organizations’ in international institutions. In this context, the article claims that the field of international institutional law is currently witnessing the rise of a principle of participation of ‘the most affected’. This shift arguably is an institutional strategy to respond to a profound legitimacy crisis of both international NGOs and the so-called ‘global governance’ structures shaped over the last 30 years. Against the backdrop of various theoretical approaches to the problem of representation and affectedness in political philosophy and international law, the article critically assesses if, and to what extent, the involvement of ‘the most affected’ in international organizations can alter the legitimacy resources of international law and its institutions.